USA

By
Compiled from wire service reports by Robert Kilborn and Ross Atkin /
March 7, 2005

President Bush promised a full investigation into the shooting at an American checkpoint in Iraq that wounded an Italian journalist just freed after a month in captivity and killed the Italian intelligence agent who had negotiated her freedom. Giuliana Sgrena, who worked for Italy's left-wing Il Manifesto, flew home Saturday. Friday's shooting in Baghdad stoked antiwar sentiment in Italy, where the public was widely opposed to the government's decision to send 3,000 troops to help US-led efforts.

In his weekly radio address, Bush demanded Syria's full withdrawal of military and intelligence personnel from Lebanon. He said Lebanese citizens who've watched free elections in Iraq now insist on the right to "decide their own destiny, free of Syrian control and domination." Complete withdrawal, Bush said, would help ensure that the Lebanese elections are held this spring.

Investigators into the double- slaying of a federal judge's husband and mother haven't yet identified suspects, but they are analyzing evidence that includes a broken window with a fingerprint, a bloody footprint, and cigarette butts. Meanwhile, Saturday's funeral in Chicago for the husband of US District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow was conducted under tight security by more than two dozen police and federal marshals. No connection in the case has been made to imprisoned white supremacist Matthew Hale, who awaits his sentencing for soliciting an FBI informant to kill the judge after her role in a trademark lawsuit that went against him.

According to Sunday's New York Times, the Bush administration may have turned a blind eye to torture in the days just after the 9/11 terrorism attacks by giving broad authority to the CIA to send suspects to foreign countries for interrogation. Although the report cites current and former government sources, one current senior official said that transfers included promises that there would be no torture.

The deaths of more than 20 rough-toothed dolphins that beached themselves in the Florida Keys prompted Navy and marine wildlife experts to investigate a possible connection to a submarine exercise in the area. Although the Navy hasn't said whether the USS Philadelphia was using sonar, some scientists suspect that loud bursts may have frightened or disoriented about 70 dolphins, causing them to surface too quickly and swim ashore last week.